Hey, ex-muslim here and I might have some answers to you.
They're are many differences between christianity and islam mainly islam is political in addition to it being a religion. Mohammad established an empire while jesus didn't have the capability to do so, because of that Islam has many laws regarding wars and stuff. The other main difference is hierarchy, Christians or Catholics at least follow the pope, he can be regarded as the leader of Christians and if you can get him to be more "moderate" most Christians will follow him. Islam or at least sunnis which are the majority of muslims don't have that hierarchical system to follow. It's up to you to choose what imam or what religious school to follow and it can range from very moderate to the extreme wahabi and jihadist. That's also why I think that the Shiites branch is easier to reform seeing that they all follow the ayatollah.
But I think there's a chance of reform in Islam and it's starting to happen in this day. In the arab and muslim world the number of atheists is on the rise and also there are some reformists trying to modernize Islam (see Majid Nawaz for example) I believe giving the right circumstances Islam will be forced to reform within 50 years.
